Apple Silicon M1 Compiles Code as Fast as 2019 Mac Pro and With Minimal Battery Life Impact

By now, we've seen many benchmark results and reviews showing the breakthrough performance of Apple's new M1 chip for Macs, but the improvements are even more impressive when coupled with battery life metrics.

m1 chip macbook air pro
TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino compiled the open source code for Safari's browser engine WebKit on a variety of Macs, and as has come to be expected, M1-based models completed the task quicker than Intel-based models.

For example, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 compiled WebKit in 20 minutes and 43 seconds, more than twice as fast as the latest Intel-based 13-inch MacBook Pro, which took 46 minutes and 10 seconds. In fact, the M1-based MacBook Pro's performance in the test was almost exactly on par with the 2019 Mac Pro.

The only exception was the MacBook Air, which was bested by the 2019 Mac Pro by about five minutes in the test, as thermal throttling eventually kicks in on the notebook due to its fanless design. It's still impressive that Apple's entry-level $999 notebook performs within the ballpark of its professional desktop workstation, which starts at $5,999, and makes it exciting to see what Apple Silicon will deliver in higher-end Macs.

webkit compile time
As mentioned, things get really impressive when battery life is considered. After the WebKit compiling was finished on the various Macs, the M1-based MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro each had 91% battery life remaining, compared to 61% on a high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro and just 24% on the Intel-based 13-inch MacBook Pro.

WebKit Compile Battery Remaining
All in all, Apple's promise that its chips would deliver industry-leading performance-per-watt appears to be holding up. Panzarino's review has lots of other useful charts and benchmarks and is worth a read as customers wait for their new Macs to arrive.

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Top Rated Comments

Darth Tulhu Avatar
55 months ago
What. The. Hell.

Apple, Steve Jobs would be proud of you. Seriously.

2020 is ending with a BANG, man. And I get to stay home and play with these!!
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sniffies Avatar
55 months ago
If I hear one more thing about M1












j/k

It's freaking mindblowing!
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
topdrawer Avatar
55 months ago
16"
16"
16"
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
midkay Avatar
55 months ago
That’s unbelievable. Quantum leaps like this are so, so rare these days. M1 is really something.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PsykX Avatar
55 months ago
It is SO HARD to wait for the upcoming iMacs right now.

But I know it's the right thing to do. I've always had an iMac, always found it was the perfect computer for me.
I cannot let my impatience win on me haha
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cibonak Avatar
55 months ago
do i need it if i just want to send emails?
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)